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  <div class="section" id="documenting-python">
<span id="documenting-index"></span><h1>Documenting Python<a class="headerlink" href="#documenting-python" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>The Python language has a substantial body of documentation, much of it
contributed by various authors. The markup used for the Python documentation is
<a class="reference external" href="http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html">reStructuredText</a>, developed by the <a class="reference external" href="http://docutils.sf.net/">docutils</a> project, amended by custom
directives and using a toolset named <a class="reference external" href="http://sphinx.pocoo.org/">Sphinx</a> to postprocess the HTML output.</p>
<p>This document describes the style guide for our documentation, the custom
reStructuredText markup introduced to support Python documentation and how it
should be used, as well as the Sphinx build system.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in contributing to Python&#8217;s documentation, there&#8217;s no need
to write reStructuredText if you&#8217;re not so inclined; plain text contributions
are more than welcome as well.</p>
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<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference external" href="intro.html">1. Introduction</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference external" href="style.html">2. Style Guide</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html">3. reStructuredText Primer</a><ul>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#paragraphs">3.1. Paragraphs</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#inline-markup">3.2. Inline markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#lists-and-quotes">3.3. Lists and Quotes</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#source-code">3.4. Source Code</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#external-links">3.5.1. External links</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#internal-links">3.5.2. Internal links</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#sections">3.6. Sections</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#explicit-markup">3.7. Explicit Markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#directives">3.8. Directives</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#footnotes">3.9. Footnotes</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#comments">3.10. Comments</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#source-encoding">3.11. Source encoding</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="rest.html#gotchas">3.12. Gotchas</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html">4. Additional Markup Constructs</a><ul>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#meta-information-markup">4.1. Meta-information markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#module-specific-markup">4.2. Module-specific markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#information-units">4.3. Information units</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#showing-code-examples">4.4. Showing code examples</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#inline-markup">4.5. Inline markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#cross-linking-markup">4.6. Cross-linking markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#paragraph-level-markup">4.7. Paragraph-level markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#table-of-contents-markup">4.8. Table-of-contents markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#index-generating-markup">4.9. Index-generating markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#grammar-production-displays">4.10. Grammar production displays</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="markup.html#substitutions">4.11. Substitutions</a></li>
</ul>
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<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference external" href="fromlatex.html">5. Differences to the LaTeX markup</a><ul>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="fromlatex.html#inline-markup">5.1. Inline markup</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="fromlatex.html#information-units">5.2. Information units</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference external" href="fromlatex.html#structure">5.3. Structure</a></li>
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